You're not alone in asking this question. Some girls worry that if they use tampons, they will no longer be virgins. The truth is, a virgin is someone who has never had sexual intercourse. Inserting a tampon is definitely not the same as having sex.

Girls who are virgins usually have a hymen, a very thin piece of skin-like tissue that stretches partly across the opening of the vagina. Most of the time a girl's hymen breaks after having sex for the first time.

A lot of people mistakenly think that a girl is still a virgin if her hymen has not been broken. But a girl's hymen can tear in ways that have nothing to do with having sex. For example, it can happen to some girls who do sports like bicycling. It's also possible that inserting a tampon might tear the hymen (although that usually doesn't happen). But even if a tampon does break a girl's hymen, she is still a virgin until she has had sexual intercourse.

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